Svend Hvidtfelt Nielsen

Born: 1958

Nationality: Danish

Publisher: Edition Wilhelm Hansen

Svend Hvidtfelt Nielsen is a Danish composer, organist and musicologist. In addition to his organ studies, he studied composition with Ib Nørholm and Hans Abrahamsen at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. He also studied composition at the Academy of Music in Aarhus with Per Nørgård and Karl Aage Rasmussen. Furthermore, Hvidtfelt Nielsen is Master of Arts in musicology and philosophy from the University of Copenhagen.

Hvidtfelt Nielsen has worked as organist in Brorson’s Church, Solvang Church and Mariendal Church, where he is still active. He has taught music theory and composition at the Academy of Music at Funen and music theory and analysis at the University of Copenhagen, from 2003 as teaching assistant professor. He has been in the board of several unions: UNM (Young Nordic Music), DUT (Young Danish Tone Artists), The Danish Composers’ Society, SNYK (The Society of New Danish Music) and the Danish State’s Council of Music.

Imagination,feeling and intuition are keywords in his music. Drawing from a wide range of inspirations, it is often quite complex, consisting of very independent parts allowing numerous different experiences for the listener. As he writes in the programme note of Flowerfall (1993): “Ideally, the work progresses in eight independent voices that take turns sticking up their heads. Together they make up a totality which in itself is a collective gestalt.”

His main works also include While Angels Sleep (1999),Winter has come (2002) and Ophelia Dances (2012).